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Malaysia Airlines confirmed that it lost contact with Flight 17 and that the plane's last known position was over Ukrainian airspace, the airline said on Twitter.

The aircraft was "shot down" over Ukraine by "terrorists" operating a Buk surface-to-air missile system, according to the Facebook page of Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry. There were 280 passengers killed as well as 15 crew members, Gerashchenko's post reads.

Hard to believe, airlines operate at high altitudes. SAMs are usually intended for use against helicopters, A10s, or other close-in fighter craft. Either the plane was flying very low, or they had a high-altitude SAM with a target lock. Or the plane wasn't shot down.

Hard to believe, airlines operate at high altitudes. SAMs are usually intended for use against helicopters, A10s, or other close-in fighter craft. Either the plane was flying very low, or they had a high-altitude SAM with a target lock. Or the plane wasn't shot down.

The line between #2 and #3 is "fuzzy" at best. #3 has also shot down several Ukrainian military aircraft in recents weeks. The latest reports say that #2 just shot down a Ukrainian fighter jet in the last day or so. There's no reason to think any sort of #4 is in the mix (unless some terrorist group claims responsibility for blowing up the plane from the inside which hasn't happened as of yet). So IMO that leaves either #1 or some combination of #2/#3. Given that the latter has been shooting down Ukrainian military aircraft recently it's more likely that they shot it down because they mistakenly thought it was military. That being said, the question then becomes will this result in sector wide sanctions against Russia because they either did it directly ... or indirectly because they supplied the SAM system to the Pro-Russian Ukrainian rebels?

Guys, you are all focusing on the suspicious location. ie - it must have been shot down because of where it was. Certainly possible.

But may I point out Malaysia Airlines lost another Boeing 777-200ER some months ago. Traced to the southern Indian ocean, search ongoing, cause unsolved.

For all we know, it is some unusual operator procedure. Kinda like that Nepal Airlines story a few years ago. Where the airline sacrificed a couple goats to help their plane repairs along.

It's not just the location. Radar and heat signature data already obtained shows the plane was shot down. There's very little question as to what happened. The outstanding question is who shot it down?

The United States also has concluded that the plane was shot down, but hasn't pinpointed who was responsible, a senior U.S. official told CNN's Barbara Starr.

The Boeing 777 carrying 295 people fell from the sky near the town of Torez in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, according to a Facebook post from a top Ukrainian official, as it flew at about 10,000 meters (nearly 33,000 feet) on the way from Amsterdam to Malaysia.

A radar system saw a surface-to-air missile system turn on and track an aircraft right before the plane went down, the senior U.S. official said. A second system saw a heat signature at the time the airliner was hit, the official said. The United States is analyzing the trajectory of the missile to try to learn where the attack came from.

Horrific. Hopefully Europe can pull together on sanctions and reel Putins expansionist desires in for a while, however, so much of Europe depends so much on Russian gas that Putin seems to be relatively untouchable.

This is what happens when democratic countries pretend that a person who is effectively a dictator with grand ambitions is actually an elected representative like themselves and plays by their rules.

With tacit support (or at least no effective censure) from China and Russia newer buddy countries such as Brazil I don't think Putin will feel he needs to do anything to rein the separatists in.

He may even feel that a Russian only crash investigation is doable. I think he really doesn't care what the US or Europe thinks, Ukraine is shafted and there are several more countries bordering Russia very much on his list.